


Holding Back The Urge

by cauldronofmorning



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, apparently streamlining three seasons with no laugh track does me psychic damage, between Abyssinia Henry and Welcome to Korea, trapper apologism and trapper bullying all in one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27918478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cauldronofmorning/pseuds/cauldronofmorning
Summary: Hawkeye is hurting over Henry's death. Trapper tries to help.
Relationships: "Trapper" John McIntyre/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	Holding Back The Urge

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a night after Abyssinia Henry, because 1) it broke me, 2) I'm not ready for Welcome to Korea yet, 3) Trapper deserves some angst.

It’d been a week since Henry was killed, and to Trapper it felt like the camp was underwater. Everyone was moving in a daze. Radar was barely eating, the colors had gone from Klinger’s wardrobe, Margaret and her nurses were constantly red-eyed, and even Frank, moving out of the swamp to his command tent, looked like this was the worst way to get his greatest wish.

It hadn’t hit him yet. If he couldn’t put anything into a letter suitable for his girls then it didn’t exist, but he couldn’t help thinking of when he and Hawkeye had gone to Tokyo to get Henry back in command. This wasn’t their fault, and Frank had been too much to stand, and it wasn’t like the eventual plane home couldn’t have been shot down anyway, but he still felt like he was making excuses for himself.

Hawkeye wasn’t sleeping. Again. There was a lull on so he didn’t have the excuse that he was the best chest cutter and needed to take all those cases, but he just stayed up, either tinkering with the still and muttering about arthritis or dragging anyone he could to play golf extremely badly.

Not wanting a repeat of last time, Trapper had taken Hawkeye’s role and stormed into what was now Frank’s office. No more drawings from Henry’s children plastered to the walls. He wondered how they were holding up.

“Frank, call Sidney for Hawkeye. Hell, call him in for the entire camp, they all could use it.” He of course wouldn’t go, but it’d be nice to have a nurse dancing with him again.

Frank, the snivelling little weasel, hadn’t budged. “Pierce has been coddled far too long. He can buck up like the rest of us.”

He felt like Hawkeye wouldn’t appreciate him ripping Frank’s head off, as much as he wanted to. They’d never really talked about what had happened in the POW’s tent, that’s not what they did, but every time a wounded prisoner came through, he could feel Hawkeye steal a quick glance at him, wondering what he’d do if things went wrong again.

Instead he tried a different tactic. “Look at Margaret, Frank. She’s been crying a lot and I’m sure you care about her.” “that she’s not putting out” is the add on he didn’t say. They were revolting together, in hypocrisy and in sucking off the military, but there had to be some kind of affection too.

There was, just not in a way that helped Trapper. “The Major doesn’t need your sympathy, Captain! She’s a capable asset to this camp, and I… haven’t seen any dips in her performance.”

“C’mon Frank…” Softness was a last resort. Hawkeye was the wordy and emotional one, Trapper seemed to have left vulnerability with Louise and the girls, where it was safe from dying boys with no facial hair, colonels who were supposed to be in bed with their wives and best friends who he didn’t want to see end up in an asylum. “This place is even more of a nightmare, and I… nobody needs to hear the news that Hawkeye wandered into a minefield.”

Something flashed that looked like sympathy in Frank’s eyes, but he went right back into wanting to get one over on someone else. “Why don’t you sedate him? You went behind his back before.”

And the look on Hawkeye’s face when he’d found himself on his bed and Trapper was sitting right by him, connecting the dots before he rushed to make a joke and never talk about it, was not something he wanted to see again. So he stormed back out, making a note to threaten Frank with everything he could think of if Frank breathed a word of anything of that to Hawk.

When he entered the swamp, hoping this plan would work, Hawkeye hadn’t noticed. Reactions delayed by the sleep exhaustion, he’d been leaning on the pipe, eyes closed and still, only just barely breathing.

“Hey buddy,” Trapper said gently, his only context for this having been when Becky had her nightmares. “I know you can’t sleep, so I’m going to put the bunks together to make it easier okay?”

It was like switching a light on in Hawkeye’s brain, and he smirked tiredly. “Knew I’d wear you down eventually.”

“No. No sex. Just easy sleep.” He hated the fact that his tone of voice was more akin to telling a dog to not piss on the carpet. But he couldn’t give Hawkeye what he wanted beyond jokes. He loved him, he stayed in this camp for him, he was always going to be on Hawkeye’s side, but actually saying any of that, even just thinking about it, caused a lump in his throat.

Hawkeye looked slightly put out, even in this state thinking there must be something he’d done wrong if someone didn’t want to sleep with him. “We shouldn’t. I’ll scream and be sweaty and you’ll get sick of me again.” In any other mode Trapper would have called him sulky. 

It was a little true. Hawkeye easy, Hawkeye quipping, Hawkeye scheming, was a lot easier for Trapper to deal with than Hawkeye having nightmares about drowning, or quietly crying over how he should have kept Tommy around longer, or hauling the entire weight of the war on his shoulders. But they weren’t going to talk about any of that. So instead he lay down on his bunk and presented where Hawkeye would sleep. “Won’t get mad. C’mon.”

Hawkeye still hung back, and Trapper felt like he was doing something terrible again by giving him a facsimile of what he wanted, but exhaustion won out and he climbed in amidst the heap of blankets, eventually biting the bullet and snuggling, resting his head on Trapper’s chest. 

“Is this okay?”

“Sure thing.” Maybe the eventual result of being around Hawkeye was hating yourself, hiding away every want you’ve ever had so that he could get the care he craved.

But it reassured the man next to him and he fell asleep, clinging onto Trapper’s dogtags, ignorant as every other time Trapper didn’t believe his own comforting words.

A big part of him wanted to rest his hand on Hawkeye’s head, not even as a romantic gesture, as a sign that he would protect him. But he couldn’t. So he lay awake, a tentative resting of his fingers on Hawkeye’s arm, ready to take them away if someone came in.


End file.
